CRIME: Hex Hollow: The York Witch Trial

On Thanksgiving Eve in 1928, three men broke into a farmhouse in Rehmeyer's Hollow, an area of York County, Pennsylvania known locally as Hex Hollow, looking for a book. Nelson Rehmeyer was a farmer and a practitioner of powwow, a Pennsylvania Dutch folk-healing tradition, and he had once cured one of the intruders as a child. John Blymire was convinced that Rehmeyer was the witch who had hexed him, and that burning Rehmeyer's copy of a folk-magic book called The Long Lost Friend would lift the curse. The three men beat Rehmeyer to death and set his body alight. The trial that followed, covered nationally as the York witch trial, put a 200-year-old belief system in front of a jury. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces the powwow tradition Nelson Rehmeyer practiced, the curse three men believed had ruined their lives, and the trial that asked a courtroom to take witchcraft seriously as a motive for murder. Head over to our YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free a…